Responsibility for the Russo-Georgian War

The five-day long, 2008 war between Russia and Georgia created controversy, with both sides blaming each other for starting the war.

A European Union investigation concluded that Georgia had started the "unjustified" war, but that this was a "mere culmination of a series of provocations". It also concluded that Russia did have the right to intervene in cases of attacks against Russian peacekeepers, but that the further Russian advance into "Georgia proper" had been disproportionate. The commission found that all parties involved in the conflict had violated international law.

Combatants' positions

Georgia first claimed that its attack responded to Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, and that it aimed to "restore constitutional order" in South Ossetia. Later, Saakashvili said the aim of the Georgian attack was to counter a Russian invasion. During a United Nations Security Council meeting on 8 August Georgia said that the first Russian troops entered South Ossetia at 05:30 am on 8 August. In a decree ordering the general mobilisation, which was published on 9 August, Saakashvili noted that the Russian troops had advanced through the Roki tunnel on 8 August, which was after the Georgian attack. The Georgian government later changed its position, saying that around 11:30 p.m. on 7 August intelligence information was received that 150 Russian army vehicles had entered Georgian territory through the Roki Tunnel. In an interview with Der Spiegel, Saakashvili said "we wanted to stop the Russian troops before they could reach Georgian villages. When our tanks moved toward Tskhinvali, the Russians bombed the city. They were the ones – not us – who reduced Tskhinvali to rubble." Georgia released intercepted telephone calls purporting to show that part of a Russian armoured regiment crossed into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia nearly a full day before Georgia's attack on the capital, Tskhinvali, late on August 7. However, in a later article published on 6 November, The New York Times said that "neither Georgia nor its Western allies have as yet provided conclusive evidence that Russia was invading the country or that the situation for Georgians in the Ossetian zone was so dire that a large-scale military attack was necessary" and that the phone intercepts published by Georgia did not show the Russian column's size, composition or mission, and that "there has not been evidence that it was engaged with Georgian forces until many hours after the Georgian bombardment."

Russia says it acted to defend Russian citizens in South Ossetia, and its own peacekeepers stationed there. The Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia suffered casualties during the initial Georgian artillery barrage on Tskhinvali and were besieged by Georgian troops for two days until a Russian unit broke through to their camp and started evacuating the wounded at 5 a.m. on 9 August. According to a senior Russian official, the first Russian combat unit was ordered to move through the Roki Tunnel at around dawn of 8 August well after the Georgian attack had begun. Defending Russia's decision to launch attacks on uncontested Georgia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia had no choice but to target the military infrastructure being used to sustain the Georgian offensive. Initially, Russia went as far as accusing Georgia of committing genocide against Ossetians, noting that Georgia codenamed their attack "Operation Clear Field". The independent EU commission found no evidence for the alleged genocide and ruled the extension of operations into uncontested Georgia illegal. Russia codenamed its operation "Operation Forcing Georgia to peace".

According to some reports, Moscow spent millions in a public relations campaign to convince the world that Georgia, not Russia, started the war – in spite of plentiful evidence to the contrary, with the most damning reporting coming from Russia's own media.

After 3 years from August War, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev admitted NATO would have been expanded to admit ex-Soviet republics if Russia had not invaded Georgia in 2008 to defend a rebel region. "If you...had faltered back in 2008, the geopolitical situation would be different now," Medvedev said in a speech to soldiers at a base in Vladikavkaz. In August 2012, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had drawn up a plan to counter a Georgian attack long before the August 2008 conflict in the Caucasus. He said the plan was developed by the Russian General Staff in late 2006-early 2007 and it was negotiated with Putin, who was serving his second presidential term in that period. According to Putin, they "trained South Ossetian militia under this plan."

South Ossetia's government in Tskhinvali said that it called for Russian help once the Georgian bombardment of their capital city, Tskhinvali, started, in order to prevent genocide and was relieved when the 58th Army intervened to assist against, what Ossetians called "the most frightful fire". A Latin American journalist, Raul Fajardo who was visiting South Ossetia, stated: "I am confident that if it had not been for Russia and the courage of the Ossetian soldiers who defended their homeland, mankind would have regretted today the genocide of the Ossetian people, the irretrievable loss of the people with a unique history, traditions and culture".

The South Ossetian government further called into question Georgia's assertion that Russian forces were bombing Tskhinvali, because the South Ossetian Minister of Defence, Vasiliy Lunev, was in command of the Russian Army after the wounding of Russian General Anatoly Khrulyov. South Ossetia stated that Saakashvili's brutal attack on their country is simply a continuation of Georgia's aggressive behavior, demonstrated in the 1920s, the early 1990s and Saakashvili's feeble attempt in 2004.

Statements by NATO states military experts

Unnamed NATO officials interviewed by Der Spiegel believed that the Georgians had started the conflict. The officials treated the exchanges of fire in the preceding days as minor events and did not see them as a justification for Georgian war preparations. The NATO experts however did not question the Georgian claim that the Russians had provoked them by sending their troops through the Roki Tunnel. But their evaluation of the facts was dominated by skepticism that these were the true reasons for Saakashvili's actions.

Western intelligence agencies, quoted by Der Spiegel, believed that Russian troops from North Ossetia did not begin marching through the Roki Tunnel until roughly 11 am on 8 August. The Russian army also did not begin firing until 7:30 am on 8 August. Wolfgang Richer, a military expert to the German OSCE mission, said that he could find no evidence to support Saakashvili's claim that the Russians had sent troops through the Roki Tunnel before the Georgian attack, but he could not rule it out either.

OSCE monitors

A former senior Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) official, Ryan Grist, who was in charge of unarmed monitors in South Ossetia at war's start and in mid of August 2008 forced to resign by OSCE, told the BBC in November 2008 that he had been warning of Georgia's military activity before its move into the South Ossetia region, saying there was a "severe escalation" and that this "would give the Russian Federation any excuse it needed in terms of trying to support its own troops."

According to Grist, it was Georgia that launched the first military strikes against Tskhinvali. "It was clear to me that the [Georgian] attack was completely indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been any, provocation,” he said. “The attack was clearly, in my mind, an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town.” Grist's views were echoed and confirmed by Stephen Young, who was another senior OSCE official in Georgia at the time. According to him, there had been little or no shelling of Georgian villages on the night Saakashvili’s troops began their onslaught on Tskhinvali. Young added, that if there had been shelling of Georgian villages that evening as Georgia has claimed, the OSCE monitors at the scene would have heard it. According to him, the monitors only heard occasional small arms fire.

Georgia, and some Western diplomats in Tbilisi later questioned Grist's objectivity. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) claimed that in an interview Grist acknowledged he crossed through Russian lines without authorization on his own initiative to determine the facts, which ultimately cost him his OSCE job. He resigned from the OSCE immediately after the war. WSJ adds Grist remains "scathing" about Georgian actions before and during the war, but says that some of his comments have been overinterpreted and quotes Grist saying "I have never said there was no provocation by the South Ossetians." "What I have said is that the response from the Georgian authorities was absolutely disproportionate," said Mr. Grist.

EU Independent Fact Finding Mission Report

An independent international fact-finding mission headed by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini was established by the EU to determine the causes of the war. The commission was given a budget of €1.6 million and also incorporated earlier reports by the OSCE, HRW and other organisations.

The Report stated that conflict started "with a massive Georgian artillery attack... against the town of Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas, launched in the night of 7 to 8 August 2008", but was "... mere culmination of series of provocations...." and that all sides share responsibility. The beginning of the armed conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia is dated at 7 August 2008 at 23.35, while the open hostilities between Georgia and Russia are considered to have started on 8 August 2008. It also noted that Georgian attack on 7 August was a response, albeit not proportionate, to South Ossetian attacks in the following paragraphs:

"To the extent that the attacks on Georgian villages, police and peacekeepers were conducted by South Ossetian militia, self-defence in the form of on-the-spot reactions by Georgian troops was necessary and proportionate and thus justified under international law. On the other hand, the offensive that started on 7 August, even if it were deemed necessary, was not proportionate to the only permissible aim, the defence against the on-going attacks from South Ossetia."

While the report acknowledged the presence of some non-peacekeeping Russian troops in South Ossetia, their presence did not justify the initial Georgian attack. The report also stated that "the use of force by Georgia against Russian peacekeeping forces in Tskhinvali in the night of 7/8 August 2008 would be contrary to international law". The report said that "if the Russian peacekeepers were attacked," then "the immediate [Russian] reaction in defense of Russian peacekeepers" would be justified, as "Russia had the right to defend its peacekeepers, using military means proportionate to the attack". The report did not have facts to substantiate the claimed attack on the peacekeepers, but found it "likely" that Russian PKF casualties may have occurred. The later, second, part of Russian actions, is characterised as "the invasion of Georgia by Russian armed forces reaching far beyond the administrative boundary of South Ossetia", and is considered to be "beyond the reasonable limits of defence". With respect to the war's second theater, the report found the Abkhaz/Russian attack on the Kodori Gorge was not justified under international law.

The Report further claimed that Russian citizenship, conferred to the vast part of Abkhaz and Ossetians may not be considered legally binding under international law. As a result, the interests of these people may not be used as a reason for starting military actions, in defense of Russian citizens living abroad.

The commission found that all parties violated international law during the conflict. The commission also found facts of ethnic cleansing of Georgians. The Report found that neither side's actions amounted to genocide.

The EU Report has been criticized, primarily because it did not include the Abkhaz and Ossetian side of the story. According to Canadian political analyst Patrick Armstrong, the Abkhaz and Ossetian arguments should have been included, and either countered or accepted. Instead the Report ignored the arguments of half of the combatants that fought in the war.

Statements by politicians

On 8 September Dana Rohrabacher (a senior Republican member of the United States House of Representatives) Foreign Affairs Committee, argued at a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, according to The Daily Telegraph, that "the Georgians had initiated the recent military confrontation in the on-going Russian-South Ossetian conflict", citing unidentified U.S. intelligence sources. Further, Telegraph reported that "Mr. Rohrabacher insisted that Georgia was to blame", citing him: "The Georgians broke the truce, not the Russians, and no amount of talk of provocation and all this other stuff can alter that fact." Telegraph stated: ""His comments got little attention in the United States but have been played prominently on state-run Russian television bulletins and other media."

On 25 November Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Georgia's former ambassador to Russia, has given a testimony to a parliamentary commission in which he said that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict. According to Kitsmarishvili, Georgian officials told him in April 2008 that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia and that they had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said that the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia and continue into Abkhazia. According to him, "Russia was ready for the war, but the Georgian leadership started the military action first."

After the war, Irakli Okruashvili, who served as Defense Minister of Georgia, claimed that he and President Saakashvili had drawn up plans to retake South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2005, Abkhazia being the strategic priority. The alleged plans called for a two-pronged offensive into South Ossetia aimed at taking Tskhinvali, the Roki Tunnel, and Java, and an offensive into Abkhazia. The capture of the Roki Tunnel might have prevented a Russian response. However, Saakashvili believed that the United States would block a response by Russia through diplomatic channels, so he did not order the taking of the Roki Tunnel. When Russian forces responded, Georgian forces raced to contain them, but were outmaneuvered by the Russians. The Georgian Army could have defended a few key towns from the Russians, but President Saakashvili "let the Russians in to avoid criticism and appear more of a victim".

A report prepared for the British House of Lords comes to the conclusion that "The precise circumstances surrounding the August 2008 outbreak of the conflict are not yet clear but responsibility for the conflict was shared, in differing measures, by all the parties. There is evidence of a Russian military build-up prior to the August war. In addition, Russia’s use of force was disproportionate in response to provocative statements and military action by President Saakashvili. President Saakashvili seems to have drawn unfounded confidence in confronting Russia as a result of mixed signals from the US Administration. The origins of the conflict lie in both distant and more recent history in the region, involving population transfers, national grievances, commercial, political and military interests."

Statements by analysts

On 13 August 2008, George Friedman, US politician, military analyst, and a CEO of a US-based think-tank Stratfor, wrote in the institution's report on the "Georgian invasion": "It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. [...] the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but -- along with the Georgians -- miscalculated Russia's intentions."

In August 2008, Svante Cornell, Johanna Popjanevski and Niklas Nilsson from the Institute for Security and Development Policy, primarily sponsored by the Government of Sweden, commented that preceding the war, "Moscow’s increasingly blatant provocations against Georgia led to a growing fear in the analytic community that it was seeking a military confrontation," adding "Russia had been meticulously preparing an invasion of Georgia through the substantial massing and preparation of forces in the country’s immediate vicinity." The paper pointed out that its assertions were "initial conclusions," and because of the recent nature of the event, the information might possibly need correction as more solid evidence arrives.

On 5 October 2008, Senior Fellow of the British International Institute for Strategic Studies Oksana Antonenko wrote, that regardless of Russia's prior "military buildup" or the low-level clashes between South Ossetian militia and Georgian forces, it was Georgia's decision to deploy its military to take control of South Ossetia that started the war. She noted that in July, 2008, expectations of an imminent war were already widespread among Georgians and international observers. Georgian forces had been preparing for a war 4 weeks before the fighting started on 7 August, by taking control of strategic positions around Tskhinvali, relocating peacekeeping units operating within the conflict zone and bringing troops and weaponry into the region. She added that it is difficult to understand what prompted Georgian president Saakashvili to launch the attack, but suggested that Saakashvili's decision may have been a calculated gamble; because of growing scepticism in the West towards his rule, Saakashvili wanted to "position Georgia in the international spotlight as the key test of whether the West would acquiesce to Russian hegemony in its near abroad. For months, Saakashvili's government sought to discredit Russia as a mediator and a peacekeeper in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and to internationalise negotiating formats, replace Russians with Western peacekeepers and weaken Russia's control over the separatist regions. Dragging Russia into a war would have done just that, particularly if Tbilisi expected any response from Moscow to remain limited to South Ossetia."

In 2008, Roy Allison, of the UK-based Chatham House, co wrote in International Affairs that there is strong evidence that the "Russian invasion" of South Ossetia and then deeper into Georgia was indeed planned and even expected rather than spontaneous and improvised. However, the exact timing of the intervention during August–September may not have been of Moscow’s choosing, if for example South Ossetian forces were impatient to instigate a conflict in July–August to give Russia a pretext for intervention and could not be effectively controlled. Regarding the events of August 7/8, Allison states that "Moscow’s insistence that its forces did not cross the Georgian border until Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali were in severe jeopardy has gained quite wide acceptance internationally. The Georgian claim has, however, been strengthened by the release of telephone intercepts (lost for a month in the chaos of combat) indicating that at least part of a Russian armoured regiment had crossed into South Ossetia by late on 7 August." In the light of the Russian occupation of uncontested Georgian territory, its claim to realise the peacekeeping function assumed in the Sochi agreements is described as "increasingly surreal". Russia's goals in the war are described as manyfold: Restoring the security of its peacekeepers and 'citizens' in South Ossetia, the establishment of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as military protectorates, a weakening of Georgia's strategic position (as a means to dissuade NATO from offering a MAP to Georgia and to diminish the attractiveness of the energy transit corridor from the Caspian) and bringing down the government of President Saakashvili.

In August 2008, Asbed Kotchikian of ISN Security Watch wrote that one of the two main reasons of the escalation of conflict on the Georgian side was Mikeil Saakashvili's attempt to boost his ratings and divert public attention from the reforms promised during the Rose Revolution.

After visiting South Ossetia in September 2008, a Mexican TV Journalist, Raul Fajardo stated: "I am confident that if it had not been for Russia and the courage of the Ossetian soldiers who defended their homeland, mankind would have regretted today the genocide of the Ossetian people, the irretrievable loss of the people with a unique history, traditions and culture".

In December 2008, Professor Charles King described the Georgian attack on South Ossetia as "an ill-planned reconquista" in his article published in the Foreign Affairs journal.

In July 2009, the Moscow Defence Brief, a magazine published by CAST, an independent Russian think-tank, pointed out that:

External observers frequently miss the point that Russia’s stake in the conflict over the unrecognised republics is much higher that that of Georgia’s entry into NATO or the destabilisation of energy transit routes that bypass Russia. Russia simply could not afford to lose: in view of the harsh nature of the conflict in Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 1990s, Georgia’s seizure of these territories would mean ethnic cleansing, and the flight to Russian territory of many tens of thousands of embittered and armed refugees. The loyalty of the North Caucasus republics of North Ossetia and Adygeya, tied by blood relation to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, would be undermined. North Ossetia, moreover, is the largest and most loyal autonomous republic in the region. Russia would have been shown to be weak before the entire North Caucasus, and this would have marked a return to the situation of the 1990s. The reaction of the international community to Russia’s war with Georgia, no matter how harsh, could not compare in significance to the implications of a new war in the North Caucasus. Georgia’s attempt to export the ethnic conflict that it created in the early 1990s to Russian territory had to be intercepted at any cost.